Official 2020 QB Thread

[SmittyBacall]

2 minutes ago, VanS said:

Oh I watched him.  I saw lots of throws that were open because of the scheme and his great receivers.  In fact, I was more impressed with Burrow as a runner than a passer.  I think many QBs could have done what he did if placed in that situation. 

Then you need work as a talent evaluator.

[VanS]

Just now, SmittyBacall said:

Then you need work as a talent evaluator.

We'll see.  The great thing about sports is in time we'll know who was right and who wasn't.  

[SmittyBacall]

Just now, VanS said:

We'll see.  The great thing about sports is in time we'll know who was right and who wasn't.  

We certainly will. But even if he is successful, I don’t foresee you budging on him or your future evaluations. You’ll just find ways to make more excuses as to why he finds success, and how he’ll never be special because he doesn’t have the athletic ability. It is what it is. 

[jrry32]

55 minutes ago, VanS said:

How on earth did Manning not have elite physical traits?  Don't let the old version of him fool you.  Young Peyton Manning had a cannon.  Plus he was 6'5" 230 lbs.  The only thing he lacked physically was mobility.  He didn't go #1 overall just cause of his last name.

 

 

Peyton never had a cannon. That was one of his knocks coming out. Leaf was the physically gifted QB. Peyton was the safe pick.

[BayRaider]

3 hours ago, SmittyBacall said:

Eat up, baby birds.

 

Kollman was fantastic when he had 60-80k subscribers. Now that he has 240k subscribers and making a ton of money, he’s getting super clickbaity and making some wilddddd takes. It’s all about views at this point. I use to love his stuff. 

[Daniel]

Lawrence is a better prospect than Burrow. If for no other reason than that he had two years of elite play and not one.

That could change by next season, but I think if Lawrence were eligible this year, he’d the the No. 1 overall pick.

If you don’t think that, you’re kidding yourself.

[BayRaider]

Lawrence is certainly a better prospect than Burrow and Tua. That has nothing to do with being a VanS take or anything of the sort. People are being effected by recency bias. This is no knock on Burrow or Tua, I feel all three are Generational QBs. Since 2012, I’ve only had six guys labeled as a Generational QB Prospect (no specific order): Andrew Luck, RGIII, Carson Wentz, Burrow, Tua, and Trevor Lawrence. Obviously whiffed on RGIII as everyone did, and jury still out on Wentz but he was well on his way to proving me right in 2017 but he is apparently made of paper. 
 

Point being, Lawrence is indeed a better prospect than Burrow, but Burrow is absolutely a generational prospect and the Bengals are lucky to get him. 

[SmittyBacall]

35 minutes ago, BayRaider said:

Kollman was fantastic when he had 60-80k subscribers. Now that he has 240k subscribers and making a ton of money, he’s getting super clickbaity and making some wilddddd takes. It’s all about views at this point. I use to love his stuff. 

I agree. The Mahomes "comparison" is hyperbolic and attention-seeking, but the crux of the video remains. Burrow - like Mahomes, Wilson, Watson, etc. - has the ability to elevate the play of others around them by winning outside of the play-script. Given the direction that the league is going it seems to be the most important trait a QB can have in 2020.

[BayRaider]

5 minutes ago, SmittyBacall said:

I agree. The Mahomes "comparison" is hyperbolic and attention-seeking, but the crux of the video remains. Burrow - like Mahomes, Wilson, Watson, etc. - has the ability to elevate the play of others around them by winning outside of the play-script. Given the direction that the league is going it seems to be the most important trait a QB can have in 2020.

Tua does this too though. The argument his cast is dominant is so lame. It’s not his fault he has a super cast. The guy is the best tight-window thrower in college to dispel that. Tua elevates talent and is a true Franchise QB. And he is the king of winning off-script. I’m not saying Tua is better than Burrow as a prospect, but it’s unfair to not include him in this. 
 

And it’s not like Burrow didn’t have two first round WRs and the greatest passing mind in college next to Lincoln Riley. You could see TB finish Top 10 in MVP voting this year. 
 

Once again, not discrediting Burrow, I just get irritated when people don’t act like Tua exist or is on Burrows level. If healthy, they are a huge debate. 

[VanS]

5 hours ago, SmittyBacall said:

We certainly will. But even if he is successful, I don’t foresee you budging on him or your future evaluations. You’ll just find ways to make more excuses as to why he finds success, and how he’ll never be special because he doesn’t have the athletic ability. It is what it is. 

Actually no.  I have changed my tune on players that I've mis-evaluated several times.  For example, I was not that high on Courtland Sutton coming out.  I thought he would be a bust.  Now I view him as the best young WR in the NFL who will be a superstar for many years to come.   And I pretty much knew I was wrong on that after I watched him in his first preseason game as a rookie.  The weird thing about sports is no matter how good you think you are at evaluating players there are some guys who totally transform when they go from one level to the next.  I try to always be as honest with myself as possible.  So when I see that I'm wrong on a player I typically am the first to admit it.

I think the main difference between me and ya'll is you guys view hype and statistical production as signs of greatness or talent while I don't.  I go by the eye test.  Its why I knew I was wrong about Courtland Sutton before he even started to play real games.  I watched how he looked on the field.  I saw his body control.  His physicality.  His explosiveness.  His catch radius.  And I knew immediately after a few snaps that I was dead wrong about him.  He was just not gonna be a bust, he was gonna be a superstar.  If Joe Burrow impresses my eye test then I'll admit I was wrong just as I was wrong about Courtland Sutton and several other players I don't have time to go into right now.  However, don't expect me to be impressed simply because he has a good statistical season as a rookie like Baker Mayfield or Dak Prescott.  During Mayfield's rookie season while everyone else was blowing rose petals up his butt, I was one of the few that stuck with my pre-draft evaluation and said he was not as good as those numbers.  Now after Year 2, I see people moving closer to my pre-draft evaluation of him as a limited player who did not deserve to be a 1st round pick let alone the #1 overall pick.

My methodology is different than most but I am consistent and have little interest in what anyone thinks of me.

[VanS]

5 hours ago, jrry32 said:

Peyton never had a cannon. That was one of his knocks coming out. Leaf was the physically gifted QB. Peyton was the safe pick.

Here's an excerpt from the man that drafted him #1 overall:  https://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/11654158/manning-leaf-1998-draft

Quote

The closer we got to the draft, the louder the "noise"-- opinions from draft media analysts far and wide -- became, until it reached a crescendo. You were hearing all of the negatives about Peyton Manning: "He's a product of the system...He's not a good athlete ... He has a weak arm ... He can't win the big one." On the contrary, you were hearing nothing but accolades for Ryan Leaf: "He's a natural thrower ... He has a cannon arm ... He can make people miss when he runs ... He's the second coming of Roger Staubach."  Most of that was in the media and largely, I'm sure, fueled by Leigh Steinberg, who was a master at getting favorable publicity for his clients.

Yet, there I was, on a Sunday, watching the tape of Peyton's throws and hearing all of that "noise" in my head: "He doesn't have a strong arm ... He can't make the deep throws ..." I began to focus on every pass in his career that traveled more than 40 yards and what I found out was that, once the ball got beyond 60 yards, he started losing accuracy. The next morning, I got Tom Moore and Bruce Arians together, and said, "I think you have a ceiling on Manning's arm at about 60 yards." They both look at me as if I were crazy. I could see in their eyes that they were thinking, He's lost it. We're working with a guy who has lost his marbles and he's in charge of the franchise! Tom then looked up and said, dryly, "Well, then, Bill, we'll be sure not to throw any passes over 59 yards."

In late March/early April, we arranged a private workout with Peyton at Tennessee. Tom has an arm-strength drill whereby he stands the quarterback on the goal line and has a receiver facing him five yards away. The quarterback has to throw to the receiver using only his arm; he isn't allowed to step into his throw or use his feet in any way. And after each throw, the receiver moves back in 5-yard increments until he eventually reaches the 50-yard line. By the time the receiver gets to the 50, you have a pretty good idea of whether the quarterback has a strong arm or not because he isn't putting anything else physically into his throws -- and he already has thrown nine passes that way. Tom put Peyton through the arm-strength drill, and his pass to the 50-yard line was on a rope. Peyton's arm was among the strongest I have seen. It maybe was not quite as strong as Jim Kelly's, but certainly strong enough. Interestingly, Peyton threw what we call a "heavy ball," meaning it has a lot of rotation on it, which was quite interesting because guys with weaker arms usually don't throw a heavy ball. When you catch a heavy ball, your hands sting because it comes out with some heat on it.

Ryan went through all of the standard throwing drills and did okay, not great. I remember turning to Tom Moore and saying, "His arm is not as strong as Peyton's." "I think you're right," Tom said. Ryan didn't drive the ball quite as well as Peyton did, which, frankly, was what showed up on tape and put the lie to this idea that there was this huge gulf physically between them.

 

I think you are just going by the media hype.  According to the guy who actually made the #1 overall pick Peyton Manning not only had a stronger arm than Ryan Leaf but according to Bill Polian it was one of the strongest he had ever seen.   As Manning aged his arm got weaker but his greatness stayed the same because of his mastery of the cerebral parts of the game.  I think its those later years where he was still dominant with a weak arm that makes people think his arm was never that strong.  I actually remember early 2000s Peyton Manning and I don't ever remember anyone saying his arm strength was lacking.  When Peyton was young he was the prototype for the strong arm pocket passing QB.  He was the guy you wanted to find in the draft.

[jrry32]

47 minutes ago, VanS said:

I think you are just going by the media hype.  

No, I'm going by actual reality. Polian has his opinion. But it was nothing approaching the majority opinion at the time, and it only took watching Manning throughout his career to see that he never had a cannon. You simply need a way to rationalize your flawed method of evaluating QBs. If Manning, Brady, and Brees all fail to meet your test, the test can't be valid. So you have to elevate Manning's arm, which at his best was only above average, to a cannon.

https://vault.si.com/vault/1999/11/22/thoroughbred-the-colts-peyton-manning-is-more-than-living-up-to-his-pedigree-now-if-he-can-just-figure-out-how-to-open-a-can-of-soup

It's not as if Manning has sneaked up on the rest of the NFL. Almost from the time he became a starter during his freshman year at Tennessee, Peyton, the son of former New Orleans Saints standout Archie Manning, was the most eagerly anticipated prospect since Troy Aikman was drafted by Dallas in 1989. Yet Manning, a 6'5" 230-pounder picked first in the '98 draft, has been even better than advertised. In the months before the draft he was repeatedly compared with Ryan Leaf, the cocky, strong-armed quarterback who had led Washington State to its first Rose Bowl appearance in 67 years. Scouts, executives and coaches, most of them speaking anonymously, popped off about Manning's alleged liabilities: unspectacular arm strength, limited mobility, a lesser upside than Leaf. It became fashionable to depict Manning as the safe pick, with Leaf cast as the potential mother lode.

Edited March 27, 2020 by jrry32

[SmittyBacall]

24 minutes ago, VanS said:

I think the main difference between me and ya'll is you guys view hype and statistical production as signs of greatness or talent while I don't.  I go by the eye test.

I would say this is what most people do, and I've said many times I don't care much at all about production. Stats are a small piece of the pie when evaluating, college or pro. Talent and skill reign supreme - and Burrow is flush with both. 

[Ragnarok]

Vols fan here.  Peyton never had an amazing arm.  Ever.  He had an above average arm when he was younger...but he never had anything close to a cannon.

[LeotheLion]

33 minutes ago, SmittyBacall said:

I would say this is what most people do, and I've said many times I don't care much at all about production. Stats are a small piece of the pie when evaluating, college or pro. Talent and skill reign supreme - and Burrow is flush with both. 

The most important thing in talent evals is the Heisman speech. Tells me all I need to know.